


And, Honey, It Ain't a Mystery Why You're a Mystery To Me

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: Blood, Bloodplay, Domestic Violence, Gen, General Creepiness, I honestly don't know if I'd consider this non-con but use your discretion, M/M, Suicide Attempt, lots of blood, marital infidelity, mentions of cruelty to animals, philosophical/theological exercise disguised as a simple story about the devil and his boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:58:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Constantine goes to hell.  Again.  This time, it sticks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And, Honey, It Ain't a Mystery Why You're a Mystery To Me

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to do with Constantine, and this school has nothing to do with Constantine. I have nothing to do with Hellblazer, and neither does Constantine. But, seriously. No copyright infringement is intended, and I'm certainly not making any money from this. Title comes from the song Deanna, by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Do not try any of this at home. Take the warnings seriously.  
> For the two of you remaining after all of that, I originally wrote a story very much like this one back in 2008, and had it on my Livejournal. That story was lost to time. This version represents my effort to reconstruct it, with some minor changes.

F. Scott Fitzergerald said that there are no second acts in American life. It's not just American life; Lucifer considers himself a citizen of the world, and can attest that it's that way everywhere. Sometimes, it's the rest of the world that doesn't want to let you change. Most of the time, though, it's the individual. Give them opportunity after opportunity to do things differently, and they'll turn up their nose again and again. Change is hard and cold, blasted of color like a winter morning, when all you want to do is stay warm and toasty in bed. Lucifer understands.  
It was Jean Paul Sartre would said that hell is other people. Not so, and Lucifer had been happy to correct him, personally. Everything a person needs to get the most out of hell is in their very own head and heart. Sometimes, Lucifer feels like it's too easy, that there's nothing for him but minor administrative tasks; like he's merely hell's janitor, or its bookkeeper. When he's feeling better about things, he thinks of himself as a facilitator, with something of the artist to him: what he does is make into reality the innermost contents of a person's soul. He not only gives them what they feel they deserve, he knows them. Better than anyone ever has or will. Better even than themselves. And he accepts them, totally. He couldn't do more for them if he were their creator.

March 3, 2015- that's when it happens. But, wait- the story actually starts before then.  
John Constantine walks away from his brush with the afterlife with a renewed interest in his mortal life. The cigarettes get flushed down the toilet. Lucifer tsks- it's a strain on the plumbing. The liquor gets poured down the sink. Again, Lucifer tsks- John could have given it away. Not an ounce of charity in that boy's heart. John goes back to school, gets his GED; enrolls in college- Religious Studies, with a minor in Psychology. When he graduates, Lucifer can't help but be proud. Eventually, John becomes a therapist, but he doesn't cease working on his own as an investigator. He positively burns with desire to help others. Does John's fervor, Lucifer wonders, feel as false to his fellow humans as it does to Lucifer? John marries the cop. If ever they have a child, it'll be the psychic equivalent of a high-performance sports car with a cut brake line.  
John and Angela talk about having children, but before they can, John comes back to himself. His days are long and exhausting. Lucifer shakes his head. People will suck the marrow from your bones if you let them. And John wants to let them. In his choice of career, he never accounted for his tendency toward not just self-destruction but self-obliteration. Or, maybe, he did. First, John begins smoking again. He doesn't even try to conceal it from his wife. She frowns, but says nothing. Then, John begins drinking again. He makes no attempt to hide this, either. Lucifer rolls his eyes. He's clearly trying to provoke Angela into starting the argument he doesn't dare start, himself. Cowardice has always been one of Lucifer's least favorite moral failings. It makes him lose interest in John for a while. Lucifer toys with the inmates, looking among them for someone who distinguishes themself in some way, but finds no one.  
In disgust and frustration, he returns to John. John has begun driving around some of the less savory parts of town. Lucifer notes with delight that John shows no interest in any of the professional ladies he passes, but instead, slows imperceptively whenever he nears a slight, dark-haired young man. He won't say he doesn't find it drippily sentimental- John is trying to find someone who resembles his friend, the cab driver- but Lucifer arranges for him to see a lot more of that type around. It's the least he can do.  
When John finally succumbs, it's delicious. Maybe drippy sentimentality is catching, because Lucifer can't help but feel like he's reunited with an old friend. John, compulsively masochistic, confesses all to Angela. She slaps him, and he hits her back, though with little conviction. A couple of hours later, she's gotten her things and left their house. She never returns. If he could have, Lucifer would have consoled John, but of course, he can't. Hopefully, he'll be able to, soon enough.  
It is, in fact, even sooner than Lucifer imagines. March 3, 2015 is a rainy day. The superintendent of the shit-hole apartment building where John's been living as a divorcee never gets around to fixing the numerous leaks in the lobby's ceiling, or even putting buckets under the leaks. A sober man would be able to right himself before he hit the floor, and even if he did hit his head, he wouldn't bleed so profusely; at the very least, he might remain conscious long enough to call for help. But John is not a sober man. His heart has already ceased to beat by the time one of his neighbors comes through the lobby. She calls the paramedics, and they work on him for a bit, but it's over. Lucifer doesn't even have time for anticipation before John is there before him, shaking his head and letting off a chilling blast of mortal atmosphere.  
“John,” Lucifer says, careful to keep his voice even, “It's been a long time. How've you been? How's the old ball and chain?” He grins.  
John shakes out his jacket, fanning Lucifer with cold air. “You know you're the only old ball and chain for me.”  
“John, you old flatterer. But don't say it if you don't mean it.”  
If John feels anything, it doesn't show on his face. He's got his courage back. Lucifer can't stop smiling. “Shall we begin?”  
“No point in hesitating.”  
“That's what I've always liked about you. You never saw the point in forestalling the inevitable.” Lucifer throws an arm around John's shoulder, and it feels good. So good. He's there, really, finally, still a little cold, but definitely warming.

Though it sometimes makes him feel like little more than a caretaker, hell more or less runs itself. Every sinner is locked into their own little personal hell, which is totally self-contained. It's one of life's great follies that humans, as good as they are at generating misery, have never caught onto the fact that it's the greatest renewable resource the world has ever known. It just goes to show that Lucifer is ahead of his time: hell has always been self-sustaining. Finally, he has a reason to love the leisure and freedom that all that efficiency buys him. Let the minor demons amuse themselves with the others as they will; John is for him, and he is for John, alone.  
If he had a heart, it would flutter. All the same, he touches his hand to his chest, as though to steady himself. “I hope you don't think me quaint, but I'd like to start with something older and a little obscure. You've done a lot of amazing work over the years, but this, this is one of my favorites. Take a seat, please.”  
Looking a little bemused, John sits.  
Lucifer smiles. “I think you're going to love this.”

John is five- five or six. For his excellent memory and superior record-keeping, Lucifer can't accurately remember, but the vagueness actually improves the piece's flavor. John is just old enough to begin to understand the way the world works, but still young enough to lack any larger context. It's an age of big discoveries, big triumphs, big fears.  
Last night, John had nightmares. Upon waking, he couldn't remember any of them, but a feeling of wrongness followed him into wakefulness, and even the next morning, he can't escape it.  
“Feeling moody?” Mommy says with a smile, as she pours cereal and milk into a bowl for him.  
“What's 'moody'?”  
“It's when you can't really decide how you feel, but you know it doesn't really feel right.”  
“Yeah. I feel so moody.”  
“Well, eat your cereal, Johnny-boy, and we'll go shopping. Maybe we can find an anti-moodiness spray.”  
John does eat his cereal, and then he gets dressed, and then, he and Mommy go to the supermarket. As soon as he walks through those doors, he begins to feel better. Here, everything is where it's supposed to be, and if you don't know where something is, you can ask. The white lights in the ceiling reach every corner of the supermarket, making the bright colors even brighter. Nothing bad could happen here.  
“These are daisies,” Mommy says, tickling John's nose with a bunch of flowers. He laughs, and she puts the flowers into the cart. When he was younger- a baby, he thinks- he used to sit in the little seat by the handle of the cart, but he's bigger, now, so he can walk next to Mommy as long he promises to be good.  
Mommy is looking for ingredients for the dinner she's going to make Daddy for his birthday. John knows his letters and numbers, and can put together the sounds to make words, so he can help her.  
“That's right- we do need more salt. Thanks for telling me. Can you read this?” She holds up a small glass bottle full of green leaves. John shakes his head.  
“It says 'sage'. That's a spice, but it can also mean 'wise', or 'a wise person'. Look at these,” she says, and takes down another small glass bottle, this one full of multi-colored sprinkles. “Do you like them?”  
John nods.  
“Maybe we can put them on your birthday cake next month.”  
John nods again, smiling. Mommy smiles back, and gives him the bottle of sprinkles to hold. He's turning it in his hands like a kaleidoscope when he hears someone say 'Judy'. Only adults call Mommy 'Judy', and adults who aren't Mommy or Daddy or Grandma are boring, so he continues to look at the sprinkles.  
Then, Mommy says, “Johnny, say hello to Mr. Mallow,” so John has to look up.  
He gasps. “Your face,” he says, and takes a step back.  
“My face?” Mr. Mallow says, and holds up a hand to his cheek. “Oh, he must mean that I cut myself shaving. It's all right, Johnny. It's just a scratch.”  
But it's not. Mr. Mallow's face looks like a scrape that had its scab pulled off too soon, reddish-pink, like it could start bleeding at any second.  
John shakes his head, but no one notices. Mommy and Mr. Mallow are talking about adult things in the voices adults use when they talk to each other, low and fast. Mr. Mallow puts his hand on Mommy's arm for a second, and John feels like he's going to be sick.  
He has to do something. Mommy might not know it, but Mr. Mallow is bad. Bad in a way John can't name, but the more he watches them talk, the surer he is that this is the truth. He has to-  
He looks down at the bottle of sprinkles in his hand. Under the white lights in the ceiling, every individual color is so bright, so true, like it's the source of that color in the world. He takes a deep breath, and with all his strength, throws the bottle to the floor. John has never heard anything as loud as the sound it makes when it shatters.  
“Goddammit!” Mommy yelps.  
“Are you all right, Judy?”  
“Yes,” Mommy huffs. She's bending over, holding her hand to the place where her bare leg shows between her boot and her skirt. “It's just a cut.”  
“Johnny, that was very bad,” Mr. Mallow says. For a second, he grins, showing teeth that are brown with rot, and then frowns again. “Judy, I'll find you a bandage, and someone to clean up this broken glass.”  
“Mommy?” John says, but she's sniffling, fumbling in her purse. A thick line of red is open on her leg, steadily dripping into her boot. She finally finds a hankie in her bag, and presses it to the bloody place. When she looks at John, then, there are tears in her eyes.

“I told you that was a good one. Popcorn?” But John doesn't want any popcorn. Lucifer frowns. “Mr. Mallow's never been one of my favorite employees- kind of a kiss-up, if you want to know- but I have to admit, he does good work. Had to promote him a few years ago- there was nothing for it,” Lucifer makes a face, then brightens, “You remember your neighbor, Mrs. Addler? Adele,” Lucifer says, pleased at having her first name so readily at-mind, “and her cat, Mr. Boots? She always thought it was kids who got her kitty, but it was Mr. Mallow. It might have ruined her faith in humanity- if, y'know, her husband hadn't been a wife-beating brute.”  
Lucifer gets some more popcorn, and then shows John what Mr. Addler used to do to Mrs. Addler, interspersed with selections from John's happier years with Angela.

Sometimes, you just have to go with the greatest hits. John is a teenager, young, and terrified, and utterly alone. No one understands what he's experiencing, and in an unusual twist on teen angst, he's right. Nobody around him knows what it's like to see demons, and ghosts, and events before they happen. Even the angels, which ought to perhaps offer some reassurance, are terrifying to John, because of their otherworldliness. John just wants to be normal, to do all of those normal things that seem so exotic to him. To hold someone's hand without knowing that their parents are getting a divorce, and that, in fifteen years, they'll be in middle management, whatever that means. To take the bus without feeling like an extra in a war movie- players from both sides all around, and the sickening feeling that something could happen, but no knowledge of what it could be. To sleep over a friend's house without their dead grandmother moaning all night about that hospital where they left her to rot.  
It's that more than the terror that gets to him. The weariness of waking up everyday and being weird. Being weird, and trying desperately to even imagine what it is to be normal, so he can pretend to be that. So, he's done.  
Even after repeated viewings, John still gasps, all but inaudibly, when he first sees the razor blade in the hand of his teenaged self. For a millisecond, it catches the light and blinks, silver and sinister. Lucifer's sure it didn't do that in real life, but good visuals go a long way toward telling a story. John reaches up, as though he could stop himself, but of course, he can't. The boy clenches his eyes closed, and cuts.  
“That sure is a lot of blood,” Lucifer says blandly, “Someone should call the paramedics.”  
“Fuck you,” John whispers.  
“Not unless you ask nicely,” Lucifer replies, and perches on John's knee, facing him. “Come on,” he takes one of John's hands by the wrist and makes it flail at him, “hit me.” John does nothing, doesn't even look at him. “What? Not tonight, honey, you have a headache?”  
“Fuck you,” John repeats.  
Lucifer sighs. “Your material sucks. Luckily, I love you as much for your body as for your sparkling conversational skills.” He pushes back John's sleeve, traces a finger down the scar he knows is there, under that absurd tattoo. To his credit, John manages not to shiver.

It's as easy as yanking loose threads, opening up the sealed flesh trenches that bisect John's forearms. A flick of Lucifer's fingers, and they're as they were when John, himself, cut them. The blood gleams sable against the ink, and carmine against John's skin. There is, Lucifer thinks fancifully, a faint but still detectable smokiness to it, like fine tea.  
Another flick of his fingers, and the scars seal up again, as though nothing had happened. John looks down at his arms, face unreadable. Another flick of Lucifer's fingers, and it begins again.

“You might ask yourself why I don't just take what I want.”  
“Yeah, I might.”  
“Well, John, it's because I'm a gentleman. I don't know if you appreciate fully what you have in me.”  
“Is this self-pity?”  
Lucifer sighs, “Oh, you know me too well. It's a nasty habit. Hard one not to develop, though, constantly being unfavorably compared to shallow, willfully stupid beings who wouldn't cross the street if it would save their souls.”  
“Humans, you mean.”  
“Yes, Johnny, humans. Very perceptive of you. Really, I can't help but love you, though. You know why?”  
“Why's that?”  
“It's because-”

Hell's biggest open secret is that you can walk out any time. Why people stay, Lucifer never understood. He used to think that they just couldn't fathom that their free will extended to, existed even in this place. Humans- no imagination. He put the word out, just to see what would happen. Nothing happened. Everyone stayed put.  
They stayed put because humans are nothing if not slaves to their own pride. To have once been the apex of the universe, God's own special creation, and to have come down so low- to their own sins, to their further abjection and degradation- how could they face God after that? They couldn't. No, it was too much. God could never forgive them, and could certainly never love them again, after the things that had been done to them. So, they stay where they are. Where, at least, they're recognized, they feel, as worthy. Yes, they are the worst of the worst. They can tell themselves that, at least.  
Lucifer doesn't know what he finds funnier- that people believe that there is a sin God would find too shocking to forgive, or that people find some comfort in being considered horrible enough for hell. Still, everyone, Lucifer supposes, just wants to be exceptional.

“So, you can just leave anytime you want to, Johnny-boy. Go back to God. Go back to your Mommy and Daddy. Go back to your little wifey. Go back to all those friends you got killed. Wanna do that?”  
John is silent.  
“I forgot- how was it that you got them all killed? Let's watch the highlight reel.”

Lucifer is sure that this is just more tiresome masochism on John's part, but it's still so lovely, so thrilling, when John finally acquiesces to his advances. If he had blood, Lucifer would blush.  
One might think that after centuries of tormenting someone with their worst failings and failures, examining every insecurity and fear, simple fucking might be redundant. And Lucifer would agree. But he's not made of stone.  
And neither is John. He might be long dead, but he's so warm, so receptive. Maybe that's why he agreed- maybe he just wanted to feel alive again. The choice of sexual partner might be bizarre, might be terrifying, but it's still sex. Almost universally, Lucifer has found, it's the drug favored by humans when they want to escape their reality.  
“You want to pretend I'm her?” Lucifer says against John's ear.  
“No,” John says flatly.  
“Do you want to pretend I'm him?” Lucifer smiles.  
“No.”  
“Good boy.”

If Lucifer had worried that taking their relationship to the next level might make him lose interest in John, he needn't have. He can't quite understand, though, what it is about John that makes him different from any of the millions of other scraps of humanity Lucifer's seen over the millennia. He shrugs. Such are the mysteries of love. That must be why everyone goes on about it at such great length- because no one can understand the fucking thing.  
Perhaps another mystery lies in the inability of one, no matter how much they love them, to completely know another. This is especially infuriating to Lucifer, considering the time and effort he's put into nothing but knowing John. There are times when John will seem totally remote- not just unknown, but unknowable.  
“Not thinking about your pretty wife, are you?” Lucifer will ask, “She's long gone, someplace the likes of you could never touch her,” he'll hiss, clumsy in anger, and forgetting that he told John that John was free to leave at any time.  
John will smile, placid, glacial. Soon enough, Lucifer will calm down, and remember where he is, and that everyone- without exception- gets everything they need to make the most of their experience.


End file.
